Step 1 for any diet

[chefmel]

Before you can start any single diet, there is one important step. This counts for any effort to lose weight, regardless of whether you're doing it by counting carbs, calories, fats, or just exercising. This first step is to take a good look at yourself, understand why you're trying to lose weight and how much effort you're willing to put into it.

The reason is that any diet that will actually help you to lose weight requires effort. Any diet that tells you that you can just sit on the couch and the fat will melt away is just interested in your money, not your success.

You need to mentally prepare yourself for the challenges that are in front of you and to do that, you need to be well aware of what you are trying to accomplish and how important it is to you. This will help you to maintain your motivation, and in weight loss, motivation is everything.

[PaulLo]

It's true. I'd call step 1 the building of your motivation. It's about creating an action plan. So when you decide that you're going to go on a diet, you need to actually know how you're going to do it and why you're going to stick to it.

Part of that is knowing why you're going to lose weight in the first place, for example, looking better, feeling better, being healthier, passing a medical for a job, or whatever. But there's also an important element that will help you to actually stick to it over time, because those long term goals can seem very far away when a chocolate bar is right in front of you.

So part of building your motivation should also include a reward system. When you're good all week, you get to do fun stuff on the weekend. It's rewards like being able to go to the ballgame, hit a bucket of balls at the driving range, or, yes, have that ONE candy bar.

[Penny]

It's funny that we don't really think of motivation as an actual step for dieting. Preparedness is just as important for this as it is for anything else. I think that too many people for get that *support* is a key part of that first step with motivation and getting ready. You will be doing this yourself but you'll be doing it more effectively if you know that people are standing behind you and won't be trying to sabotage you by offering you eclairs from the coffee shop twice per day haha.

[jkate456]

Weight Lloss Diet

Before you can start any single diet, there is one important step. This counts for any effort to lose weight, regardless of whether you're doing it by counting carbs, calories, fats, or just exercising. This first step is to take a good look at yourself, understand why you're trying to lose weight and how much effort you're willing to put into it.

The reason is that any diet that will actually help you to lose weight requires effort. Any diet that tells you that you can just sit on the couch and the fat will melt away is just interested in your money, not your success.

You need to mentally prepare yourself for the challenges that are in front of you and to do that, you need to be well aware of what you are trying to accomplish and how important it is to you. This will help you to maintain your motivation, and in weight loss, motivation is everything.

This is very true. Everybody who wants to lose weight must go through this step. It will really helpful.

[freddyboy]

You're right. Too many people jump into a diet and try to build their motivation after. Do things in the right order for success.

[ffviifan]

You're right. Too many people jump into a diet and try to build their motivation after. Do things in the right order for success.

Sometimes jumping in is the only way that you can really do it. I know it sounds foolish, but the most effective diet I have ever done was the result of just getting fed up because my clothes were getting tight and very uncomfortable yet again, and I just hated the way that I looked. Everything was becoming a struggle and I was sick to death of it. So I went on a kind of diet rampage that came out of nowhere. That motivation didn't take planning of any kind. It was after a few weeks that I started to have to focus on keeping things up and maintaining my drive. So while I do think this is a good idea, I believe that as long as motivation isn't a forgotten step, it doesn't necessarily need to be the first one in the planning.

[anne]

I think we all handle things differently. I think what everybody can agree on is that motivation is a critical part of any diet. That being said, you need motivation right from the very start. Whether it's motivation you've planned out or it's the type that you build on after jumping in spontaneously, it's equally important.

So maybe what you can say is that Step 1 has two parts - the motivation and the choice of the diet. No matter what your motivation type (planned or spontaneous) you will need to add it to step 2, 3, 4, and so on. So that's important to recognize is that it be a part of every single step in dieting. As soon as you lose motivation, you're finished.